


words might not be enough

by PhantomFlutist



Series: My deep wounds don't heal [1]
Category: VIXX
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-12
Updated: 2015-06-12
Packaged: 2018-04-04 00:46:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4120363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhantomFlutist/pseuds/PhantomFlutist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every part of him felt unequivocally tied to Hongbin, and without him Wonshik wasn’t sure who he was anymore. Wonshik had always, always been so devoted to making Hongbin happy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	words might not be enough

**Author's Note:**

> From the prompt generator: Ken/Ravi - Like it or not, you screwed up
> 
> Optional reading playlist here: https://youtu.be/EnBQS3BvrGQ?list=PLZSZWbDRvFvN8x8fHrMLXpqVQadHjRiWQ
> 
> X-posted on livejournal

Wonshik slammed his way into the dorm room and chucked his bag somewhere in the vicinity of his desk. It made a satisfying crash as the books inside it met with wood and knocked several things to the floor. Wonshik took some pleasure in noting that one of those things was the framed photograph of the two of them that Hongbin had given him for his birthday.  
  
“Whoa,” Jaehwan complained immediately, pulling an earphone out of his ear and staring at Wonshik with narrowed eyes. “Do you have to destroy the room every time you come in? Because even if you’re usually at your boyfriend’s, I still have to live here.”  
  
Wonshik let out a vague growling noise and flopped down onto his bed. The blankets were a mess and half the bed was covered in sheet music which crunched as he moved, but he didn’t care. He was still seeing red after his conversation with Hongbin, and any little bit of destruction just made him feel better.  
  
Jaehwan got up so that he could lean over Wonshik and wave a hand in his face. “Hello? Dude, you’re such an ass. I’m talking to you.”  
  
Wonshik ignored him, still quietly seething. He filled a fist with paper, crumpled the music sheets into a tight ball and threw it across the room.  
  
Jaehwan ducked the projectile, an unattractive squawking noise coming out of his mouth. “Seriously?” he screeched. He pulled Wonshik’s headphones off—he wasn’t actually listening to anything, he just didn’t want anyone to talk to him—and insisted, “You can be grumpy all you want, but can you leave our room out of it, please?”  
  
Snatching the headphones from Jaehwan’s hand, Wonshik rolled over, crushing more sheet music in the process. He didn’t want to talk to Jaehwan. He didn’t want to talk to anyone, but he didn’t have anywhere else to go.  
  
“Fine, whatever,” Jaehwan said. He plopped himself onto his desk chair and added, “But if you throw anything else at me I’m calling Hongbin to come get you.”  
  
The noise that came out of Wonshik then was ungodly. He sat up abruptly to glare at Jaehwan. “If you do, I will make sure they never find your body,” he promised, his voice dripping venom.  
  
“What the hell is your problem?” Jaehwan asked. “Did you guys have a fight or something?”  
  
Wonshik shook his head and threw himself back down on the bed. He didn’t want to talk about it.  
  
Jaehwan waited, picking at his nails as if he couldn’t care less about Wonshik’s answer. Wonshik knew that it was just a ruse—Jaehwan had figured out years ago that that was the easiest way to get Wonshik to talk.  
  
“He accused me of cheating, okay?” He said it like the words were being dragged out of him, tension in his throat. He swallowed to try to dispel it, but that only made it worse.  
  
“And?”  
  
Wonshik shifted to stare at Jaehwan like he was an idiot. “What do you mean, and?”  
  
Jaehwan finally looked up from his nails to reply, “Well, did you cheat on him?”  
  
“No!” Wonshik stood, his hands balling into fists so tight that his knuckles lost all color. Every line of muscle in him felt rigid with the pain of accusation, and he shook, feeling like the world was crumbling around him. Two years he and Hongbin had been together. And Wonshik had never been anything but faithful, he’d never done anything to make Hongbin feel unloved or unwanted. They’d fought, like all couples fought, but they’d always apologized afterwards and made things right. But that afternoon, Hongbin hadn’t even listened to what Wonshik had to say.  
  
_“You’re cheating on me, aren’t you? I don’t want to see you anymore.”_  
  
Jaehwan’s eyes were bugging out of his head, and he wordlessly (for once) reached out and pulled a tissue from the box on his desk and handed it to Wonshik. At first Wonshik didn’t understand why Jaehwan thought he would need it, until he reached up and felt the wet that coated his cheeks. He was crying. Of course he was crying. No matter how tough and serious he tried to make himself seem, Wonshik had always been the emotional one. Hongbin never cried at sad movies or when he cut himself shaving or when a professor threw a pop quiz and he bombed it. Hongbin was always stronger than that, while Wonshik struggled and held back tears.  
  
_“I don’t want to see you anymore.”_  
  
Wonshik had dedicated two years of his life to Hongbin, to the connection that they had. He’d written at least a dozen love songs for Hongbin. He had only passed his physics course freshman year because Hongbin had tutored him at the expense of both their sleep schedules. But maybe Hongbin had gotten tired of being the strong one, the smart one, the one who always took care of everything and always cleaned up behind Wonshik because he got into these crazy fits where he couldn’t stand to do anything but compose. Maybe Hongbin just didn’t love him anymore, or maybe he had never loved him in the first place.  
  
Wonshik picked up another pile of sheet music. Songs he had written for Hongbin. Songs he had written thinking of Hongbin. None of it meant anything, anymore, because Hongbin didn’t love him.  
  
Papers tore in his hands and flew across the room. Jaehwan squawked and complained but didn’t try to stop him, and Wonshik destroyed it all, everything he’d written in the past two months, everything he could find that even minutely reminded him of Hongbin. He couldn’t do this. He’d never been in this much pain, not even when he’d broken his leg in high school and had to sit out of soccer for the rest of the season. Hongbin had been everything to him, had kept him from going crazy when his sister had stopped calling for two months after she started at that performing arts high school that he’d been so proud of her for getting into.  
  
Wonshik didn’t know what he was going to do. All of his friends were friends with Hongbin, they were in at least half of their classes together, and they worked part-time at the same coffee shop. He didn’t think he could keep doing all that, going to classes and hanging with friends and working, with Hongbin right at his side but not his anymore. He wasn’t strong enough for that.  
  
“Oh god, why is this happening?” he moaned, falling to sit on the bed with his face in his hands. He missed Hongbin already, though they’d been apart for less than an hour. He missed Hongbin’s stupid smile, the dimples that poked into his cheeks. He missed Hongbin’s breathless laughter when Wonshik said something stupid and the warmth of his arms when he pulled Wonshik in for a hug. He thought of Hongbin’s blank expression when he told Wonshik, “I don’t want to see you anymore,” and his insides clenched tightly. He wondered if this was what a heart attack felt like, and decided that this was probably more painful.  
  
Wonshik curled up in his bed surrounded by the shredded remains of his life’s work, and fell asleep with tears still trickling down his face.  
  
\---  
  
When Wonshik woke, his dorm room was full of people. Hakyeon was there, sitting on the edge of Wonshik’s bed and stroking his hair. Behind him, Taekwoon was in Wonshik’s desk chair playing games on his phone, and Sanghyuk was perched on Jaehwan’s desk, his stocking-feet resting on Jaehwan’s lap. Jaehwan looked like he hadn’t moved since before Wonshik went to sleep, still in the same place he had been, petting Sanghyuk’s ankle absentmindedly.  
  
Wonshik looked around at them all, and asked on a croak, “What, did someone die?”  
  
It was meant to be a joke, but no one laughed. They all just stared at him somberly (except for Taekwoon, who didn’t look up from his phone) until finally Hakyeon asked, “Wonshik, do you want to talk about it?”  
  
Wonshik felt a painful shudder go through him. Did he want to talk about Hongbin breaking up with him out of the blue, after two years together? Did he want to talk about the fact that he was confused and heartbroken and not sure who he was without Hongbin? Did he want to talk about the fact that just a few hours previous, he had destroyed some of the best work he’d ever done, and that he knew he would never get any of it back? The clicking in his throat as he swallowed, the prickle of tears at the back of his eyes, said that no, he did not want to  _talk about it,_  and also that he really wanted them all to leave before he started crying again.  
  
But he didn’t say that. Instead he said, “I need a cigarette.”  
  
That didn’t help quell the staring. He’d quit smoking over a year ago, when Hongbin had confessed that the habit grossed him out and that he was worried about Wonshik’s health. But that wasn’t an issue anymore, was it?  
  
Standing, Wonshik reached for his headphones, for his iPod, and then stepped in front of Taekwoon. For several long moments no one moved, and then finally Taekwoon looked up from his phone and said very clearly, “No.”  
  
Wonshik breathed out in a rush, and with an unsteady tongue simply said, “Please, hyung.”  
  
Maybe it was the tears, or the words, or maybe it was just because Taekwoon had always indulged all of them, but he sighed and reached into his pocket. The packet he pulled out was crumpled and only half full and the lighter was cheap, but the weight of it in Wonshik’s hand helped to steady him. This was something he knew, something that was familiar without being tied so closely to Hongbin that he couldn’t think. Stupid or not, he needed it.  
  
None of them followed him out, which was for the best. He felt like he might fall apart if he had to talk right then. It was all he could do to keep breathing, to stay upright and keep walking. Every part of him felt unequivocally tied to Hongbin, and without him Wonshik wasn’t sure who he was anymore.  
  
The air outside was cool, but not cold. Wonshik wished it were, wished that the biting wind could take some of the pain away, or at least shift his focus to something other than  _‘I wonder what Hongbin is doing right now.’_  It was habit, to think of him that way, to wonder if he was busy, or having fun without Wonshik, or missing him. Wonshik doubted that Hongbin missed him.  
  
The slow glide of nicotine filling his lungs didn’t hold the same pleasure that it used to. Sure, towards the end it felt stupid and pointless, but he hadn’t started smoking because it was cool or because his friends were doing it, though there was some of that. He’d started smoking because the smell of it had always soothed him, because the subtle burn of the smoke sliding down his throat made him feel stronger.  
  
Standing by himself in the cold, with his headphones over his ears half for warmth and half so that no one would try to talk to him, Wonshik had to admit that it mostly made him feel stupid and childish now. He couldn’t savor it, because in his mind Hongbin was standing beside him, his face scrunched up in that pinched little look of distaste that he had.  
  
Wonshik dropped the half-smoked cigarette and crushed it under his shoe. Even smoking reminded him of Hongbin.  
  
Instead he pulled out his iPod, chose the angriest music he owned, and turned the volume up. He started walking, not really sure where he was going, just knowing that he had to get away. He needed to be somewhere that Hongbin had never been, to see things that Hongbin had never seen. If he could find some piece of himself—no matter how small—that Hongbin hadn’t infected, then maybe he could recover.  
  
He wasn’t sure a piece like that existed.  
  
\---  
  
Hakyeon tapped his nail on his phone cover, considering, before he said, “Maybe he smoked the whole pack and went to buy another one. How many were in there, Taekwoon?”  
  
Taekwoon shrugged. He was still playing games, completely unconcerned by this whole dilemma. He was convinced that Wonshik and Hongbin would work it out like they always did. But Hakyeon wasn’t convinced that this was anything like their usual fights. He’d seen them storm out of rooms and delete each other’s numbers, and scream at each other until they couldn’t speak, but he had never seen Wonshik tear apart his compositions because of a fight, nor had they ever been so unwilling to talk about whatever had happened.   
  
After Jaehwan had called them all for help, the first thing Hakyeon had done was call Hongbin, but at the first mention of Wonshik’s name Hongbin had hung up, and he hadn’t picked up any of their calls after that.   
  
“Maybe someone should go after him,” Hakyeon suggested. Wonshik clearly hadn’t wanted to talk, but his behavior was frightening. Hakyeon felt like they should check on him, at least, and make sure he hadn’t decided to jump off a building rather than live without Hongbin.  
  
Jaehwan’s sigh was loud and overdramatic, like everything Jaehwan did. “I’m not doing it,” he said, looking around at the mess in his room. It looked like there’d been a party with really cheap confetti. “I have dealt with enough of his meltdowns.”  
  
Hakyeon looked pleadingly at Sanghyuk, who only shook his head and stared pointedly at Taekwoon.   
  
Hakyeon turned with his best, wettest eyes prepared for pleading with Taekwoon…who was getting up and shrugging on his jacket. “Taekwoonie,” Hakyeon cooed, clasping his hands together in front of his chest and giving Taekwoon his best smile. “You’re going to check on Wonshik?”  
  
Taekwoon grunted and, looking down at Hakyeon with what Hakyeon liked to think of as the blank look that Taekwoon reserved especially for him, said, “I need a smoke.”  
  
He walked out, and Hakyeon deflated, his shoulders slumping in defeat. “I guess he’ll find Wonshik in the process, anyway.”  
  
Hopefully he’d even find Wonshik in time. Hakyeon still wasn’t over thinking that he might do something stupid.  
  
\---  
  
It was cold. It hadn’t seemed cold when Wonshik stepped outside, but after walking around in too light a jacket (Hongbin was always scolding him for not dressing warmly enough) for a solid hour, Wonshik was well and truly chilled to the bone. His hands ached where they were fisted in his pockets, and he couldn’t feel his face. His ears were the only part of him that were warm, protected from the wind by his headphones and subjected to constant, heavy vibrations from the music still pumping from his iPod.  
  
He’d wandered into a completely unfamiliar part of the city. The buildings here were smaller—the tallest only three or four stories as opposed to twenty—and made of older, red brick. Some of them seemed to be crumbling at the corners, and moss and weeds grew around their foundations. Despite the apparent age and upkeep of the buildings, the street itself was teeming with life. Everyone was busy and moving, there were street vendors with small carts parked on the sidewalks (or right in the street in some of the smaller alleys), and loud, cheerful voices filled the chill air.  
  
A middle-aged woman with a perm and some fantastic floral pants was grilling something that smelled delicious, and normally Wonshik would start to salivate as he walked past her cart, and probably pause to identify the source of the smell and acquire some for himself. But he didn’t have an appetite, and he couldn’t imagine eating at a street cart without Hongbin at his side. That was something that they always did together, and it didn’t feel right to leave Hongbin out.  
  
_“I don’t want to see you anymore.”_  
  
Hongbin didn’t love him, but that didn’t mean that Wonshik was just going to pretend that they were never anything to each other. There was a part of him that would always be Hongbin’s, no matter how long they were apart.  
  
He slipped into a coffee shop (Hongbin was at his side, ordering a green tea latte and smiling when Wonshik paid before he even had a chance to reach for his wallet) and ordered an Americano, sliding into a booth to curl his hands around the cup and shudder as his body started to warm. (Hongbin sat close and pressed himself into Wonshik’s side to share his body heat.)  
  
In the quiet bustle of the café, Wonshik could almost pretend that he was waiting for Hongbin to meet him, that soon he would slide into the seat across from Wonshik and smile (all dimples) at him and steal his coffee and ask how he did on his Music Theory exam this afternoon. (Wonshik aced it, as always. He couldn’t do math or science for shit, but he was the best in all his music classes.)

The coffee was bitter, and nowhere near as good as what Hongbin made (standing behind the counter of the café where they worked, wearing the brown standard-issue apron and a soft blue sweater while he measured espresso) but Wonshik felt the heat slide through him and with it, a soft wetness. He didn’t want to cry, not there, when he was trying to find a place where he could just be  _Wonshik_  without having that  _Hongbin’s boyfriend_  attached in the front.  
  
There was an ache in him, an emptiness. It was like Hongbin had torn out all the pieces of Wonshik that belonged to him and had taken them away with him, leaving only the parts that were still solely Wonshik’s. He didn’t feel like much of a person anymore.  
  
\---  
  
When Taekwoon came back smelling freshly of cigarette smoke, Hakyeon pounced on him. “Is he okay?” he asked. “You were out there for a while. Did you guys talk?”  
  
Taekwoon shook his head and settled himself into Wonshik’s desk chair again, pulling out his phone and hunching over it.  
  
“But he’s okay?” Hakyeon pressed. Even if they hadn’t talked, he needed to know that Wonshik was going to be alright. It was his job as the oldest.  
  
Taekwoon’s shrug sent a chill through Hakyeon, as did his next words. “He wasn’t there.”  
  
Hakyeon’s phone was in his hand in an instant, and he’d hardly finished dialing when he put it to his ear. “God, Wonshik,” he begged. “Please pick up.”  
  
Somewhere beneath Wonshik’s desk, a buzzing started.  
  
\---  
  
Everything was wrong. Wonshik was  _wrong_  without Hongbin at his side. How could that be? How could two whole people come together, and then when they parted not be whole people still? If Wonshik had still been Wonshik, he would have written a song about that. Now he couldn’t muster the creative part of him, couldn’t string even a few lyrics together. It hurt to try.  
  
He remembered the first love song he’d written for Hongbin, back when things between them had been new and fresh. They’d had their first fight, and already Wonshik had thought that fighting with Hongbin was the end of the world. He remembered the devastation, the utter despair that had gripped him when he’d realized that because of something stupid (he couldn’t remember, almost two years later, what the fight had been about, only that it had been stupid) he might lose that wonderful, amazing man forever.  
  
He’d composed all night, roommate be damned, and had shown up at Hongbin’s room at six in the morning and pounded on his door until Hongbin’s roommate (Chanshik) had let him in. Hongbin was still rubbing sleep from his eyes and mumbling bleary questions at Chanshik when Wonshik had plopped himself down on Hongbin’s bed and started playing the guitar.  
  
By the time he’d finished, his voice had been rough from choking back tears, and Hongbin was hugging him from behind. It hadn’t been the most traditional way to celebrate their two month anniversary, but Wonshik would never have had it any other way.  
  
Since then it had become a tradition that every time they fought, Wonshik would write Hongbin a song. Sometimes they were mean and angry, sometimes they were soft and apologetic, but that was always the way that they resolved their fights. Often, Wonshik would storm up to Hongbin wherever he happened to be at the time, shove a guitar into his hands, and force him to play what Wonshik had written. Other times Wonshik wanted to pluck the strings himself, to show Hongbin how devoted he was to making him happy.  
  
Wonshik had always, always been so devoted to making Hongbin happy. But maybe that was their problem. And now, Wonshik couldn’t find a song. There were no words; there was no melody that would make this better. Perhaps that meant that they were well and truly broken.  
  
\---  
  
_“Lee Hongbin!”_  Hakyeon screamed (not for the first time) at Hongbin’s voicemail. “I know you’re pissed at Wonshik, and you’re pissed at me for wanting the two of you to work it out, or whatever you’re mad at me for. But Wonshik went out for a smoke two hours ago and hasn’t come back, and I’m  _worried._  He wasn’t himself, and it wasn’t the way he normally acts when you guys fight and I just…I don’t know what he’ll do, but I desperately hope that we find him before he does something stupid, because if he hurts himself over you then—whatever, just…if you get this,  _please call me._  I know you’re mad, but this is important, okay?”  
  
Hakyeon kept hiking. The four of them had spread out as much as they could over the areas they thought Wonshik might go. Hakyeon would confess later that he spent more time looking at rooflines than at the students he was walking past on the campus paths. But there was a desperate (motherly) urge to find Wonshik as soon as possible. He needed to know that he was alright before his fluttering heartbeat would calm.  
  
Wonshik had to be okay.  
  
\---  
  
Wonshik was staring at his empty coffee cup, wondering what he was supposed to do now. There was probably some sort of etiquette for that, something that he was supposed to do with it. (Hongbin was smiling at him over the rim of a cup, steam wafting into his face and fogging up his glasses. He was beautiful.) Wonshik hardly ever had to do anything about his coffee cups; most of the time Hongbin took care of those things for him. (Hongbin faked an annoyed huff as he stood to gather their trash and dispose of it. But when he came back to the table he pressed a kiss to Wonshik’s cheek and rested his head on Wonshik’s shoulder to watch him work.)  
  
Another cup was set down on the table across from Wonshik, and a tall man in a black wool coat slid into the seat across from him. “Everyone’s worried, you know,” Jaehwan said. His face was unusually somber, and the corners of his mouth were pulled down tight. It didn’t suit him.  
  
Wonshik didn’t say anything. Hongbin had taken all his words.  
  
Jaehwan tried again, after a few beats of silence. “Hakyeon tried to call the police and file a missing person’s report. You left your phone in the room, so we couldn’t call you, and he thought you looked like you might….”  
  
Wonshik snorted. Like he could kill himself. He was too much of a coward, too indecisive without Hongbin at his side to talk him through his options. Just deciding how to do it…Wonshik wasn’t going to kill himself. He just needed time; time to remember the person that he was before he gave himself to Hongbin. The problem was that that person was a scared college freshman who didn’t know who he was or how he shaped up to the world at large. That person was uncertain and weak and desperate to make music but didn’t know what he wanted to do with it.  
  
Hongbin had taken that person away, had helped Wonshik to become more confident, more self-assured. Hongbin had changed him so much, and then he’d taken away all of those things, and left weak, uncertain Wonshik with his bad habits and his pain, with none of the passion for music that had let him forget about those things for a while.  
  
“We know you’re upset,” Jaehwan said. He looked like he was ready to reach out and pat Wonshik’s hand comfortingly. Wonshik let go of his cup and pulled his hands into his lap. “We know that the last thing you want is to talk about it to all of us. Baring your soul in front of the whole world isn’t fun. So don’t. But at least come show Hakyeon that you’re alive so that he stops sending us out like his own personal search dogs?”  
  
Wonshik shook his head. He didn’t want to see them. He didn’t want to know what Hongbin had said to them about him. He didn’t want to think about Hongbin talking to everyone but him, of him curling up next to Chanshik to watch movies like nothing had happened.  
  
Jaehwan huffed, and then his voice had bite when he spoke again. “Seriously, this is getting annoying. I know you two have this weird love-hate relationship, but clearly something happened, or you would be following him around trying to convince him to take you back or writing him a disgustingly cheesy song right now unless something he said to you was actually true.” Jaehwan took a sip of his coffee, considering Wonshik for a while like that was going to help him figure out what was going on.  
  
Wonshik didn’t move. He didn’t have the energy for that anymore, wasn’t sure if he ever would again. Maybe he would just stay in this café for the rest of his life.  
  
“So,” Jaehwan began, after he had apparently analyzed Wonshik for long enough. “Like it or not, you probably screwed up somehow. Maybe you didn’t cheat, but you did  _something._  What was it?” He rubbed his chin, like he was carefully considering possibilities. “Did you forget his birthday? Insult his sister?” He leaned closer, his eyes squinting and devious as he whispered, “Were you bad  _in bed?”_  
  
Wonshik mustered the energy to plant a hand in the middle of Jaehwan’s face and shove it as far away from him as possible. It was stupid, wondering if Jaehwan was right, because it wasn’t like he and Hongbin were shy with each other when it came to sex. They talked about what they wanted, and if something didn’t feel right, or if they didn’t like something, they said so. Sex with Hongbin was always good, so it couldn’t be that Wonshik was a lousy lover. Hongbin wasn’t so petty as to leave him over something like that anyway.  
  
But Jaehwan was right in another respect. Wonshik knew why he wasn’t chasing after Hongbin. He didn’t want to face the fact that maybe all of this was his fault after all. He didn’t want to go after Hongbin only to be shown that there was really no fixing them. And he knew that was stupid—he hadn’t  _done anything_ —but the more he thought about it the more he realized that Hongbin had been kind of distant and distracted lately. So maybe it wasn’t his fault, maybe he hadn’t done anything, but something was wrong and Hongbin didn’t want him to fix it.  
  
He couldn’t stop thinking about the look in Hongbin’s eyes when he said,  _“I don’t want to see you anymore.”_  Every time he did, another spike of pain lanced through his chest. Wonshik thought maybe he was dying, and kind of hoped he was. He didn’t want to be here anymore.  
  
“If I come home,” he said to Jaehwan at last, “Will you all leave me alone?”  
  
He didn’t want to go home, didn’t want to sit in that dorm room and stew over his own pain. He didn’t want to be anywhere doing anything. Ideally, he’d like to cease to exist, at least for a little while. But if it meant that they would  _stop asking,_  that everyone would leave him alone to figure out what the hell he was going to do now, then he would go and show them his face.  
  
Jaehwan nodded emphatically and moved to get up. Feeling heavy and exhausted, Wonshik followed.  
  
\---  
  
Hakyeon actually  _squealed_  when Jaehwan texted to let him know that he’d found Wonshik and was bringing him home. His heart started racing faster, and he booked it back to the dorm, wanting to be the first one there to make sure that Wonshik was okay.  
  
He got to the building at the same time as Taekwoon, who was holding a Starbucks cup and looking entirely disinterested in the whole situation. “Yah!” Hakyeon yelled as soon as he was close enough, neck-chopping Taekwoon viciously. “Our friend was in danger of killing himself and you stopped to get  _coffee_?”  
  
Taekwoon shrugged, shoving Hakyeon away and not holding the door for him as he went inside.  
  
“Asshole,” Hakyeon muttered, shoving through the door and aiming a petty kick at the back of Taekwoon’s knee.  
  
Taekwoon dodged it, the bastard, and then he was taking the stairs two at a time and Hakyeon couldn’t keep up with him anymore.  
  
\---  
  
Wonshik was assaulted as soon as he walked into his room. Everyone was there already, and Hakyeon had a strange, frantic look in his eyes. “Yah, Kim Wonshik!” he yelled, leaping forward and neck-chopping Wonshik several times in quick succession. “How dare you scare us like that!”  
  
Wonshik ducked away from Hakyeon’s hold and glanced around the room. Sanghyuk was lounging on Jaehwan’s bed with a comic book and Taekwoon was holding a coffee with one hand and flicking through something on his phone with the other, his headphones firmly in and ignoring all of them. Wonshik was pretty sure that Hakyeon was the only one who had been worried. Not that he’d needed to be worried. Wonshik wasn’t going to kill himself; he was too tired. It was dinner time, and the others were probably exhausted too, after chasing after him like that, and he really wanted them all to just go away.  
  
He went over to his bed and curled up on top of the covers. There were still tiny bits of paper all over the room, and he picked up one that was on the pillow near his face, rubbing his thumb slowly over the edges. The tears were ragged and sharp, pricking at his skin. The destruction of his work, he thought morbidly, matched the destruction of the rest of his life rather well.  
  
With quiet words from Jaehwan, the others finally filed out of the room, leaving Wonshik truly alone for the first time since the break-up. With them gone, with no distractions or sounds to pull him away, all he could think of was Hongbin. (Hongbin was lying on the bed next to him, their foreheads pressed together and their breathing synced. Hongbin was smiling, his fingers laced with Wonshik’s. He had always loved these quiet moments together.)  
  
The tears didn’t come this time. Wonshik almost wished for them, if only to help him release the emotions that choked him. Maybe if he let out the sorrow, there would be room for something to take its place. (Hongbin kissed him, gentle and soft. Their feet tangled together and they pressed closer, as close as they could be without becoming one person. Wonshik held Hongbin and wondered how he had ever lived without him.)  
  
Wonshik could only lay there, in the silence and the pain, in the wreckage of everything he loved, and hope that time would heal him. (Hongbin’s soft whispers against his skin,  _“I love you,” and “I need you,” and “Never leave me alone.”_ )  
  
Wonshik didn’t want to be alone.


End file.
